Colorado Gun Bills

As you know, House Bills 1224, 1226, 1228, and 1229, all of which would greatly restrict the rights of gun owners, will soon be heard by the Colorado State Senate. Our timetable for stopping these bills is getting shorter and shorter; they are going to be introduced in the senate over the next few days and heard in committee early next week.

Every one of these bills is completely absurd. I recently stated in a Denver Post article that House Bill 1229, which would require universal background checks for firearms transfers, would criminalize gun owners for loaning a gun to their nephew or close friend and could only be enforced through a statewide gun registry. Bills like HB 1229 can be summed up in three words: “Ridiculous. Unnecessary. Dangerous.” You can read the full-text of my article here: http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_22673810/gun-bill-dangerous-unnecessary

The Democrats have scheduled all of these bills to be heard by their respective committees on the same day at the same time. They will be heard at 1:30pm on Monday the 4th. I suspect that this is an effort to sneak these gun control measures past Colorado gun owners by making it difficult for concerned citizens and experts to testify. Don’t let them get away with this. Please make your voice heard by coming to the capitol on Monday. Be sure to come early to sign up to testify, as there will be a lot of witnesses.

Now more than ever it is crucial that you contact your state senator and ask them to vote “no” on all of these bills. If you’re not sure who your local legislators are, you can find out on this site by typing in your zip code: http://votesmart.org/. You can also find your legislators’ contact information at http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2013A/csl.nsf/Directory?openFrameset for the House and http://www.leg.state.co.us/CLICS/CLICS2013A/csl.nsf/DirectorySen?openframeset for the Senate. As always, in addition to succinctly voicing your opinions on the bills, it would be great to remind your legislators that you will be keeping their votes on these anti-gun bills in mind during the 2014 election.

As has become the norm for their party, senate Democrats are trying to avoid talking to gun owners by either not scheduling townhall meetings over the weekend or making information on those meetings hard to find. Below is some information on a few townhalls going on tonight and Saturday. I will send you more information on townhalls as it becomes available. Also, if any of you can bring a video camera to a townhall meeting, we’d love to capture it on film.